The Beast In Us (The Beast And Me Book 3) Read online

  The Beast in Us

  The Beast and Me III

  D.S. Wrights

  Copyright © 2016 D.S. Wrights

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1533427240

  ISBN-13: 978-1533427243

  For my Beasties.

  I apologize upfront.

  My special thanks go to my Beasties – the ladies of my Street Team for supporting my work and me for the past year. It means a lot to me.

  Also a huge “thank you” to Tori!

  And the biggest bouquet of ‘thank you’s’ goes to my girl Annie!

  Day 136

  Jay woke me up.

  I could feel it in my veins, in my bones. He was there, with me. I know this as clearly as the fact that the sun is yellow and around his iris is a thin circle of a color that reminds of corroded copper, which expands whenever his instincts claim control over his body.

  The secret mark of the Beast inside of Jay.

  Just as clearly as I know that I have changed, not just in character, not just through experience, I am not only the person I was anymore: I am not the same human anymore.

  I cannot say that they have changed me. Physically, I seem to be just as human as before: not stronger, not more tenacious, not more efficient, and definitely not beastlier.

  At least, that is how I feel.

  Still, I am different. I seem different to my own perception, and I know that I am not the same as I was before I was put into this coma. All I know is that something is different, I am different. Something is missing. And that is the only thought I am willing to think.

  Because it feels cold, and empty.

  These few words are already too many. And they feel wrong.

  All I know, what I really know, is that Jay woke me up.

  Jay is the reason why I am awake again.

  Even though I am not sure if I even want to be awake, or that I even want to be still alive.

  Because I feel...I feel dead inside.

  XXX

  It took me four days to even move. And I am not sure if it was the coma wearing off, or if it was just me.

  Four days. Four days of painless pain.

  I could sense my body slowly aching, but I didn’t feel anything. As if it was something remembered on the verge between being awake and asleep, not really knowing whether it is part of a dream or reality.

  Lying awake and staring at the ceiling was something I really feel used to right now. Especially when no one is around and the monitor noises are switched off. Well, at least those which have a switch.

  Everything else is just...noisy and loud. It hurts in my ears, sometimes, not all the time, because I remember them. They are familiar to me. I have not only heard them in the last four days, but in the days before.

  I can’t tell since when, but I know them, recognize them, just as if you are visiting a place you have been to several times. Even though you are not aware of all the sounds, smells, and sensations, you would instantly know if something has changed, but you wouldn’t be able to put a finger on it.

  I do know, precisely. Just as I do know that Jay was here every single day, if not in body, then at least in mind.

  I don’t know if I miss him.

  What I know is that the thought of uncertainty pains me. Why shouldn’t I miss him? Or why should I?

  I think that might be the reason why I woke up at all. As in: really woke up. As in: moving my limbs on my own and not by some doctor.

  My muscles feel sore, but not un-used.

  Shouldn’t I need therapy for this?

  Or did they do those massages and exercises while I was asleep as well? It would make sense, wouldn’t it?

  XXX

  I found my old diary, and this one, on the table next to my bed, but I can’t recall when I got them. I can’t recall that I’ve looked at them either.

  My memory is foggy. I think I was able to move long before I was able to think clearly again, think consciously again. And it had nothing to do with myself. Watching my hand move the pen across this paper almost feels surreal. I feel surreal. As if I am still half asleep.

  I remember them bringing a third diary though. And that one...I instantly knew was not mine. The third one is his. I feel like I can smell him lingering between those pages and this thought is unsettling. How could I come up with that if I’m not able to catch a scent? It has to be my imagination.

  What else is?

  Maybe I’m not awake at all? Maybe I’m still in a coma, unconsciously lying there, a prisoner within myself.

  What if none of this was ever real? What if all of this was just part of my imagination?

  I could have been in an accident. The kidnapping I remember could have been me being run over, and all the pain I’ve experienced as a result just has been explained by my imagination through this horrific tale.

  Is all of this a dream? ...A nightmare? Am I even awake?

  Day 137

  Dr. Valerie Winters, or ‘Val’, is my caretaker. She is really nice to me. Still, I feel almost as numb about her as about everything else. But she treats me in a way I feel I haven’t been treated in a very long time.

  Is it respect? Is it caring, maybe? ...Or just plain friendliness? I am not sure. All I know is that it makes me feel slightly suspicious.

  Still, a part of me, the part that sounds sane in my head, tells me that I don’t need to be.

  She doesn’t talk much when she comes in and checks on me. I know they must have more medical staff than just her in here, wherever I am – am I even still where I was before? Yet, it only has been her, visiting me. I mean, okay, I’m like consciously awake for two days now, maybe, so who knows if she is the only one, but it kind of seems like it. And Val doesn’t ask anything that is intrusive. She asks how I feel. She moves slowly. She makes sure that I can always see where she goes and explains what she is about to do, when she does it. And that’s it. It feels like she’s waiting for me to ask something, or say something.

  All Val does is check my IV and exchange it, checks my pulse with her fingers, and looking at her watch, shining a light into my eyes, telling me not to move too much, or walk around. Why that is, she doesn’t say and I don’t ask.

  I still have the sensors from the monitors attached to me, so maybe that’s why.

  She brought me lunch today, and that was when I realized that I hadn’t been hungry since I had woken up yesterday. Obviously, Val could read that thought off my face, and she smiled again; that friendly, warmish smile of hers.

  “It’s the IV,” she explained, while putting the tray on one of those rolling thingies you have next to your hospital beds. “I will exchange them today with a different one, you should feel hungry soon. Your body needs to get accustomed to normal food. You’ve been out for some time.”

  It was the first time Val mentioned me being in a coma. I just know that I was, because I feel so tired, weak, and strange. But I didn’t react or comment on what she said to me, because somehow I was reminded of someone else who had brought me food for a long time. Peter.

  Peter. This name makes me feel comfortable, yet hurts just the same. Was he real? I didn’t care to ask. My memories are a blur. I don’t know whether I am dreaming or if this is real.

  “Do you want me to stay?” she asked me, smiling warmly again; her voice was soft, her touch was gentle. “Give you some company?”

  Again her question reminded me of Peter. He stayed with me, ate with me. I know that for sure.

  Using my voice...it’s something I haven’t done yet, and it feels strange. Somehow I am scared of hearing my own voice. That’s why I just nodded, as Val asked me.

  Eating in company; it f
elt awkward. Maybe it was because it was my first meal after sleeping – no – after being out for so long. Maybe because it’s her instead of someone I was used to. But I remember that I usually ate alone; since I was a teen, no matter where I stayed, at my Mom’s or my Dad’s, at school, or wherever. It’s even stranger to eat while someone else watches you, and isn’t eating. I felt compelled to start a conversation, but then again, my throat, my vocal cords, feel strange. Plus eating, swallowing...I felt like I had forgotten to do all that stuff.

  “You don’t need to talk,” Val suddenly said, again, as if she could read my thoughts, but I think that’s just the typical thing to say. “I’m sure everything is a bit overwhelming.”

  I nodded as a response. Usually, I wouldn’t be able to hold eye-contact, but somehow, now I can, I want to. I want to watch her face, her expression. After all, it’s the only thing I can really look at, apart from the diaries. But I don’t want to read any of them. And as I write this down now, my own writing looks odd.

  And all the time, I feel like I am missing something, like I should feel differently about all of this, but all I do is feel, is empty.

  I know that I want to. I want to feel nothing, to be indifferent. I don’t want to remember. I want to pretend that all that has happened, didn’t happen. And a part of me, my memory, obliges my wishes. Everything before my coma is a hazy blur. I don’t know if that’s normal for someone being shut off for who knows how long, or not. I do not care.

  My head doesn’t remember, it doesn’t remember clearly, and I am okay with it. I don’t look into the mirror above the basin, when I wash myself or my hands – there’s no shower here, and I know that’s normal. I don’t touch the diaries; I don’t care to look for clothes. I’m okay with wearing the hospital gown. I’m okay with my aching and weak legs.

  My head doesn’t remember, but my body does. It remembers the stress. It remembers the lust, the ecstasy, the pain, the claws, the fingers, the lips, the kisses, and the heat. And my heart remembers pounding, out of fear, out of nervousness, out of lust, and the absence of gravity.

  Day 138

  These books, these diaries I have here with me. I feel like I should read them, but I don’t want to. I’m afraid of what’s inside. And not wanting to read them makes me feel bad and guilty, as if I am denying something its existence.

  Val says that I don’t have to if I don’t feel like it, but I should continue writing in this diary, even though I don’t want to. She says it will help me regain the memories that haven’t returned yet, and that it would probably be easier for me if I let them come back on their own accord and not force it by reading them.

  I know she is right. I know if I read these two books, whatever is inside will be foreign and strange for me, and it wouldn’t be as if I’m reading one of my novels. I wouldn’t accept them as my own. But then again...the other one, the one I know is not mine. Would it be so wrong to read it?

  Every time I look at it I see him in front of me. The one I know is called ‘Jay’ and ‘Ten’, the one with the haunted eyes, which have the color of corroded copper around the edges. The one that terrifies me, and yet, gives me the feeling of being safe, being home. I haven’t felt as if I’m home for a long time. I still don’t. But I feel like it is right outside my door, on the other side of the mirror, right in front of me.

  Jay woke me up. You woke me up and I can feel you watching me, just as I can feel other eyes watching me. Eyes that I once knew, eyes I dreaded, which I have always dreaded. I feel them leaving a trail of goosebumps on my skin, and making the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  When I look at that mirror, I barely see myself, although I recognize the girl in front of me. But when I look at that mirror, I can see shadows behind it. I can sense people behind it...and almost hear them whisper.

  I am not alone. I am never alone.

  There are moments like this one – and they seem to grow longer – when I feel as if I know exactly who I am. I know where my scars came from, the ones on my stomach. My hands remember them as I trace them, imitating the movements which created them.

  At moments like this I feel as if these scars are still open wounds inside of me, tearing me into shreds. And I don’t want to remember. I hold my head in my hands, wanting to crush it while keeping myself together, as all my memories come crashing down onto me like a giant wave.

  I don’t want these memories. I don’t want to know that I call Val’s boss ‘White’ instead of Dr. Severin. I don’t want to know that my only friend, Peter, lied to me, betrayed me...I don’t want to know that the man I love is locked away like an animal, caged, just like me.

  I want to wake up again in a hospital room, thinking that the fire I heard someone talk about was what brought me here, even though my scars weren’t born from fire.

  I don’t want to know that I love a monster.

  There is something seriously wrong with me. Not just with my memories, not just with my mind, but with all of me. I can sense it, feel it, and taste it on the tip of my tongue. I’m not the woman I once was, I’m not the woman I turned into. I’m not me anymore.

  Day 139

  My memories return in my dreams. That’s what Val told me when I woke up screaming, while she held my upper arms trying to soothe me. How can this horror be a memory of mine?

  Darkness, blindness, only sounds behind me...and I cannot move...claws tearing through my flesh...this pain, this unbelievable pain, as I feel like I am cut in two.

  And as I write this, I can feel my scars prickle as if they are inviting me to touch them again. When I do, it feels so strange, like a memory, a sensation. I remember a different hand moving along them, fitting perfectly to the marks, and filling me with a strange need. Just like when I woke up with the light in my room.

  That was a different memory...one that I’m too embarrassed to even put down in words. I’m pretty sure that I made different sounds while dreaming this time too, but Val hasn’t said anything about it.

  All she does say is that it’s good that I am starting to remember things naturally, without me reading it from my diary. I think writing into this one is actually what is helping me remember. I just wish I could wear something else other than this hospital gown, and could have a different room, which would make me feel more normal.

  I asked Val about it, and her reaction was odd. And what she said was even more confusing.

  “It’s safer for you to stay here and remember things as slowly as possible,” she said quietly, leaning into me and turning her head as if she wanted to hide that she was answering me.

  And then she straightened up.

  “When you are fully recovered Meg, than you’ll get a normal room,” she spoke clearly this time. “But until then, until I am absolutely sure that you are well, you are going to have to stay under my care.”

  “I understand,” I answered slowly and nodded.

  I’m pretty sure there was someone standing behind that mirrored window watching us, although I know that there were cameras, too, watching me.

  So, remembering things is good and bad. What an irony that I agree on that.

  XXX

  Val left after she gave me a second diary that looks just like the one I am writing in now, my iPod, and a piece of paper with different time slots labeled ‘without supervision.’

  She pointed at the new diary and said: “Fake your entries in here. Use your old one for yourself.”

  And with that she left. But I get it; although I’m not leaving this room, whoever is watching me...might one day demand to read my diary. They have probably done it before, so it makes sense to keep them in the dark. They are the enemy.

  So, I’ll be transferring all my entries tonight, and wait for my memories to return, or maybe...maybe I’ll take a look at the diary that is not mine. But do I really want to know what’s in there?

  I can’t really stop my memories from returning. It’s not that I am having major flashbacks that knock me down or anything.
It’s more like feelings, sensations now and then, things that feel familiar. And some memories are mixed up with others. Like me knowing about the dorm fire, but not remembering being in my dorm. But I remember being transported and not knowing where I was.

  For whatever reason, I thought I had been in the fire and couldn’t remember it like everything else. But now I remember that it was White who told me about the fire and who told me...that my parents believe I am dead.

  And then Jay, White’s Ten, my Jay. Mine...I do remember how he uttered this word for the first time, and how it made me feel. And I know how the memory makes me feel, about it, about myself, and about him. And while I am writing this down there is nothing I want more than to see him. I just don’t want to have this weird feeling of him watching me, which he probably is.

  I want him, I need him. I need his arms around me. I want the smell that is him, the familiar warmth, his strength, and the sound of his heart beat slowing down when I lay my head on his chest.

  We had a normal day with each other, a human day. ...And now? Has he stayed human, or did he lose himself without me? Did White make him lose his humanity again, or did he manage to stay him...to stay Jay?

  So, the decision is made. I am going to read his diary right after I have transferred my entries, or in between breaks. It needs to look like I’ve put the pen down now and then. Maybe I have a bit more time to transfer my entries.

  After all I will have to add fake ones.

  I don’t know if I am able to do a good job here, but I’ll try, even though it probably means that I won’t see Jay for a long time. If White thinks I’m still out of it, and I am still pretty out of it – he won’t take me from Val. That’s what all of this is about, right? That’s what she meant with ‘it’s safer to stay here.’